The present invention generally relates to a new computer-aided system and method for analyzing an individual financial security/holding or portfolio of securities/holdings and providing a real-time intuitive view of a security's/portfolio's exposure to exogenous economic and market influences.
In recent years, taking advantage of the proliferation of advanced desktop computer technology and the Internet, and recognizing the increasing degree to which amateur and professional investors have become more “self-directed” in their investing approaches, financial services and market data firms have begun to offer their clients heat maps and other security screening tools. Such tools enable users to monitor data more effectively. It will be appreciated that the suite of analytic tools of the present invention leverage this advancement in desktop computer technology and the Internet to provide these new self-directed portfolio managers with new dynamic views of a security's or portfolio's relationship with relevant exogenous influences.
Conventional security screening, heat map and portfolio reporting technology provide only fundamental research analysis or market statistics such as ratings, earnings-per-share (EPS) estimates, P/E ratio, market capitalization or yield. In addition, these conventional tools provide only views on the broader market and do not provide views on the user's existing holdings, interest list or portfolio.
As a result, investors and portfolio managers have heretofore not had the benefit of an intuitive means to view portfolio/holding exposure to various exogenous economic and market factors such as, for example, movements in interest rates, commodity prices, currencies, macroeconomic variables, indices, sector/industry specific drivers and geopolitical influences, and have been left to interpolate these relationships by examining individual charts or, at best, calculating/analyzing them on a security-by-security basis. Therefore, when, for example, oil prices rise or a significant geopolitical event occurs, the investors and portfolio managers lack the capability to obtain a real-time understanding of how such event might impact on their portfolio/holdings based on historical data.
The system and method according to the present invention fills this gap by providing users with the capability to leverage fundamental or quantitative research and manage security/portfolio exposure to exogenous economic, geopolitical, market and industry-specific influences through a textual and/or graphical representation of this exposure in real-time in table, chart, heat map or other suitable format. As described in greater detail hereinafter, the present invention employs portfolio analytic tools which not only provide the market data that are conventionally available, but also provide the user with the aforementioned view of the exposure of a security or portfolio of securities to exogenous economic and market factors.